


You're Right Here With Me

by RisingShadows



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23551612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingShadows/pseuds/RisingShadows
Summary: The war ends, she brings him home.
Relationships: William Schofield/William Schofield's Wife
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	You're Right Here With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Here With Me by The Native Sibling

There is blood on his hands. Blood on his hands that he can’t wipe off, the memory of it ingrained in his head. Still visible in the red stain of dried blood that mixed with the dirt beneath his fingernails. There is blood on his hands and nothing he does can wash it off. 

He falls, drifts, stumbles, fights and falls again. The blood is still there, even after he drifts through a river, climbs the bodies of dead men. Stumbles to the base of a tree while another too young soldier boy sings. Even after he takes to the trenches, even after he holds out a letter, clutched in bloody fingers. 

The blood doesn’t wash away, he doesn’t think it ever will. Not after he’s dragged himself home to the woman he loves, not after he’s found the brother he was sent to save. Not after he’s washed his hands a thousand times. Not even when his daughters take his hands and lead him to the garden to show the flowers they’ve grown. 

The blood never washes away, not when she takes his hands in hers and leads him from the small kitchen back to their room. Past their daughters sleeping forms, stopping just long enough for him to see them. Just long enough for him to watch the slight rise and fall of slumbering chests. 

The blood is never gone, always there. A reminder of what he lost. Of what he can never bring back. Of a boy dying in his arms like so many others and yet so much more. A boy that died because he hadn’t lost his kindness to a war that left only hate and pain and grief in its wake. 

She takes his hands in hers anyways, guides him, bloodied, and beaten, and bruised. Leads him to the bed they share and settles him on the sheets. Curls against his side as she lifts one of his hands to her face, presses her lips to the back of his palm and shushes his desperate murmur. As she hums a gentle song, her voice drifting through the quiet of their home. Sometimes he forgets that there is beauty still left in this world. That not everything was lost to the desperate rush of war.

She guides their daughters through their first stumbling lines of French, teaches him in whispers as she leads him home. She takes his hands and drags him from the battlefield. From the trenches, from the screams of dying men. She takes his hands and leads him home when he is lost. 

Leads him home when his breath catches in his throat, when his hands shake and all he remembers is blood on his hands. She leads him home and all he can do is follow, stumble in her wake like a soul caught in the grasp of something greater. 

She is a redemption he hadn’t known he’d need. A blessing he couldn’t live without. She guides him from dreams that steal the breath from his lungs, from the desperate itch of blood dried on his hands. She guides him home with a gentle touch and the soft hum of her voice.

He remembers the shell’s that fell around him, the men that screamed and begged to live as their blood mixed with the mud beneath their feet. He isn’t worthy of the love that she offers, isn’t worthy of what she gives but she doesn’t seem to care. Not when she leads him one morning from their home. The girls sent off to stay with her mother for the day as she guides him down the old well worn paths beside their home. When she presses a kiss to his palms as she leads him beneath the trees. 

Smiles when he offers his best one to her. Settles them beneath the trees, his back pressed against the bark as she lays her head on his shoulder. And then she sings, her voice drifting through the air around him, her hands soft in his. She smiles at him and it steals the breath from his lungs, steals the words that had risen unbidden to his tongue until they fall from his lips like prayer. 

“El, I missed you. I missed you always, for as long as we fought, I never stopped missing you.” The words are a whisper, a breath in the silence of the trees. Beside him she laughs a soft lyrical sound as she leans up, presses her lips to his for a moment. Clutches his hands in her own. Clean of dirt and grime. Clean of the blood of dead men, so unlike his and yet. And yet he can’t let go. 

“I know Will, and I’ve never stopped missing you. Never.” The words ring in his ears as he moves, cradling her head in his hands as he presses their foreheads together. Her breath a whisper against his lips. 

For a time they sit like that. Wrapped around each other as he breathes, closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of the trees. Listens to the wind, the birdsong. The soft hum as she sings beautiful blue eyes watching him, lips pulling into that soft smile she always gives him when she finds what she’s looking for. 

“You’re home, you’re here. I haven’t lost you yet, and I don’t intend too if you’ll allow me.” It isn’t a question, not even truly a request and Will finds himself nodding. Leaning into her touch as she cradles his cheek with one hand. “I’ll always be here to lead you home when you get lost. Always Will, for as long as I can.”

The tears drip down her cheeks mirroring his own as he leans in once more. Their foreheads brushing as she brings her other hand up, cradles his face with both of her hands. His arms wind their way around her waist, pull her closer and he thinks he could follow her forever. Even when lost, even when trapped in memories he cannot escape he would follow her. 

“El-” She shushes him gently, presses their lips together for half a second before she breaks away and looks at him. Her hands still cradling his face, her eyes still wet with unshed tears. 

“For as long as we live Will, for as long as you’ll allow me, I will be here, I will bring you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think this might be the first fic I've got where Tom didn't survive. Tell me what you think! Also, her full name is Elizabeth Schofield.


End file.
